


Song From an American Movie

by dancinguniverse



Category: True Detective
Genre: Father's Day, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-16
Updated: 2014-06-16
Packaged: 2018-02-04 20:42:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1792567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinguniverse/pseuds/dancinguniverse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rust loves these moments when the world recedes and leaves only the two of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Song From an American Movie

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blackeyedblonde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackeyedblonde/gifts).



> Written for Father's Day, as a response to a tumblr post.

Rust has always slept lightly, so when the first fitful gurgles emerge from the baby monitor, he’s already throwing off the covers. He smooths a hand down Claire’s back to tell her he’s got this one, pulls on a tee shirt, and is down the hall before Sophia can start crying in earnest.

She’s waiting for him with big liquid eyes and tiny fists, and he smiles because even at half past three in the morning, she’s beautiful. She needs changing, which Rust can do half asleep at this point. She burbles quietly to herself while he works, sounding undecided as to whether she needs to wail or not. He finishes while she’s still making up her mind and lifts her, tucking her with a practiced motion into one arm and heading into the kitchen.

He bounces her gently while he pulls out a pot and heats up formula, wandering in slow loops around the kitchen and living room. There’s a meditative quality to her night feedings, and his motions are automatic by this point. Humans are biologically primed to find comfort in ritual, and Rust lets himself take that comfort, because this ritual is necessary too, and for a good purpose. Even more, it’s a ritual he does with Sophia, and he catalogs every one of those, tucks them safely away like his memories of the aurora, to be pulled out when he needs to feel something wild and quiet and true and good.

At work they all ask after Sophia’s progress, offer sympathy for his sleep, promise she’ll get through the nights on her own soon enough. Rust can’t say he loved getting woken every two hours (only partly because of the toll it took on Claire), but Sophia’s down to every three or four hours now, and Rust loves these moments when the world recedes and leaves only the two of them. He knows some of it is evolutionary, just like the ritual, that his body rewards him for his caretaking. But he can’t help the surge of pride when she fusses and wails before he picks her up, and then quiets in his hands. He cleans her, feeds her, and thinks, _I got this._ He talks to her, caresses the feather-soft hair on her head, and it’s a promise that she won’t ever feel unwanted. It’ll be sappy and undesired, but when she’s older he wants to be able to tell her he was there for every wet diaper and every cry she gave in the middle of the night.

The kitchen window’s open and the air flowing in feels good, so when the bottle’s ready Rust eases open the back door and moves his absent pacing outside. He eases down into one of the lawn chairs, and Sophia latches onto the bottle eagerly. “That’s right,” he murmurs. “Look at you go.” He relaxes into the soft night air, the smell of wet grass and baby formula. He takes in the yard, the sky above them, the constellations all shifted from his memories of Alaska. When she’s older he’ll teach her the stars, the real names and shared mythology he learned and the personal ones he created.

He looks up towards the brightest visible point of light, which spectacularly outshines everything around it. “Here’s your first lesson,” he says to her. She watches him, eyes dark and serious, but she doesn’t understand pointing yet and his hands are occupied anyway, so he doesn’t bother. “That one there is Jupiter. Not a star at all of course, but not much like our planet here either. Just a giant ball of gas with a storm that’s been going for hundreds of years. Jupiter,” he repeats, and she waves a tiny hand, fisting it in the sleeve of his tee shirt. “I’m testing you later.”

She finishes the bottle and he walks her slowly around the yard until she falls asleep in his arms. He stands a while longer, staring up at the stars. Maybe he’ll take her up north sometime. Claire doesn’t like the idea of cold, but she does like the idea of whales, and he’d like to see the look on her face when she sees them. His father had made the trek into town to call Rust on the phone when he’d gotten the news about Sophia, so Rust figures maybe he’d like to see her someday. And Rust himself wants to watch the crackling sheets of the Northern Lights again, a silent symphony of color, and hold his daughter close, see the look in her eyes. He wants her to love what he loves, and he knows how dangerous that is, but he trusts that she will, for this. He wants to see the colors and the awe in her face, and he’ll tell her, _This was me, this was what I loved_.

He thinks sometimes, with an almost dizzy rush, that someday she’ll be able to tell him what _she_ loves. That someday not too far from now she’ll have opinions about her giraffe doll or spaceship blanket that aren’t based on how they feel when she sticks them in her mouth. The idea of meeting that girl is the only thing that makes the idea of losing their quiet nighttime rituals bearable. For now he throws one last glance skyward before walking back inside to lay Sophia down, the end of their little ceremony for the night. There’ll be time when she’s older for Alaska and astronomy lessons and everything he wants to share with her. There’ll be time for all of it.


End file.
